Long Island City

Queens Library is offering library customers an opportunity to attend the Cisco Academy and become eligible for certification to work as an IT technician, IT administrator or field service technician. The course is free. It consists of 20 three-hour training sessions. The course will be held at Queens Library at Long Island City, at 37-44 21st St. Comment.

Monday, Jan. 16, 2012

Whitestone

You would have to be a man of faith to ask for $3 million, joked Monsignor John Tosi, but the pastor’s prayers were answered by the parishioners at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Whitestone. Comments (6).

Ozone Park

A father and son died in what investigators believe was an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in Ozone Park. Police said that both Kuo-Kung Chen, 66, and his son Aaron Chen, 29, were found dead in their home on 101st Avenue at 90th Street Saturday evening. Comments (2).

Astoria

Hundreds of trees were chopped and turned into mulch during MulchFest, an annual event in Astoria Park. The event was presented by city Department of Parks & Recreation, the Department of Sanitation, Green Shores NYC, the Astoria Park Alliance and Partnerships for Parks. Comment.

Flushing

Bayside

Ann-Margaret Carrozza is sponsoring her 16th annual Valentines for Vets gift drive. The Law Offices of Ann-Margaret Carrozza, in conjunction with state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside), the Jefferson Democratic Club and Dr. Robert Mittman, will be collecting donations of cards and candy, toiletries and new clothing for hospitalized and disabled veterans. Comments (1).

Letters

Are you as startled as I every time a commercial on TV from an attorney’s office informs us that if we took a certain medication to contact their office because the medication causes all kinds of problems, including death? Comment.

Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012

Jackson Heights

It is common in Queens for elected officials to hold events together, but when the representatives of Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Corona and East Elmhurst held their holiday party this year, they listed their involvement under the name “Unity Team.” Comment.

Photo by Rich Bockmann

Little Neck

Since September 2010, Queens has been hit by a tornado, a blizzard and a tropical storm — each of which has taken its toll on the borough’s trees, especially in areas such as parks and the leafy neighborhoods in the northeast. Comment.

Douglaston

The Douglaston Fairway raised more than $6,500 last Thursday in donations to a scholarship fund established for the daughters of fallen NYPD Detective Peter Figoski, who was killed in the line of duty Dec. 12. Comment.

QueensLine

Two Yale students on the final leg of a 29,000-mile world tour land in College Point in early January 1935. They take more than 600 pictures of places and people with an aerial camera and plan to donate the images to the Geographical Society of America. Their last hop, a four-hour trip from Morehead City, N.C., was one of the most brutal. Facing a 45 mph headwind, the ice-covered plane lands in an ice-caked Flushing Bay. Comment.

Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012

Long Island City

Crime in the 114th Precinct dropped last year, with the murder rate going down more than 44 percent from 2010, but incidents of crime rose slightly in its southern neighbor, the 108th Precinct, according to Police Department statistics. Comment.

Astoria

The state Public Services Commission condemned a proposed $4.8 million settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Morgan Stanley over the financial services firm’s alleged violation of antitrust laws through selling derivatives to KeySpan, which once operated the Big Allis plant. Comment.

Kew Gardens

The final numbers are not in yet, but traffic deaths in Queens last year are expected to be at an all-time low, city Department of Transportation Queens Commissioner Maura McCarthy told the Borough Board Monday. Comments (1).

The Play’s the Thing

While I continue to look for a new venue for The Outrageous Fortune Company, homeless these past 18 months, Sofia Landon Geier and her Unity Stage Company continue to demonstrate that good theater can be performed almost anywhere. Established in 2009, Unity has found space in back rooms of restaurants, community centers, churches, basements, and you name it. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and Geier has the determination, energy and talent to make sure that her company succeeds. Comments (1).

The Civic Scene

New York City is starting a new round of witch trials in our schools, just like the ones conducted last year. The witches are the schools accused of being failures. City education officials just announced that they want to close 19 failing schools while state education officials claim 104 Queens schools were in need of improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Comment.

Editorial

Imagine that one day you head to a local pharmacy to pick up a prescription and find out the store no longer accepts your employer’s pharmacy plan. This could happen soon consumers in New York state if the Federal Trade Commission signs off on a plan to merge two of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers. Comment.

Ridgewood

District Attorney Richard Brown coined yet another unflattering nickname for a Queens thoroughfare Friday morning when he announced the results of a massive drug bust involving suspected dealers in the borough and well-to-do customers in Suffolk and Nassau counties. Comments (4).

Jamaica

The three precincts covering southeast Queens saw significant declines in the number of murders in 2011, but those gains have been overshadowed by the increase in other crime sectors in the area, police statistics show. Comment.

Flushing

Unionized nurses negotiating a contract with Flushing Hospital are furious that management did not sign an agreement to continue their pension plans while the two sides duke it out at the bargaining table. Comment.

Flushing Times

Immaculate Conception guard Kelcey Castro dribbled up the floor and shook Amani Tatum with a quick crossover, leaving the Molloy guard fallen on the hardwood floor. The mostly pro-New Jersey crowd let out oohs and ahhs and Castro buried a three-pointer from the top of the key. Comment.

Editorial

Imagine that one day you head to a local pharmacy to pick up a prescription and find out the store no longer accepts your employer’s pharmacy plan. This could happen soon to New York state consumers if the Federal Trade Commission signs off on a plan to merge two of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers. Comments (3).

Letters

Regarding the Dec. 1-7 TimesLedger Newspaper article “Students protest as CUNY hikes tuition,” I am pleased to share several unreported data points on the value and affordability of a City University of New York education and its benefits for our students. Comment.

South Ozone Park

Genting, the company behind the racino at Aqueduct Racetrack, is in discussions with the state to construct and finance the country’s largest convention center at the South Ozone Park site and expects at least 20,000 jobs to be created by the project. Comment.

Flushing

The federal government has decided that the proposed renovation of the RKO Keith’s Theatre in downtown Flushing would not pose a hazard to planes landing and taking off from LaGuardia Airport. Comments (2).

Flushing

Ten suspected members of the MS-13 gang were charged last week with violent crimes involving baseball bats and machetes, but the indictment read in Brooklyn federal court also provided a picture of rivalries played out on the streets of Flushing. Comments (1).

Bayside

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Bob Turner (R-Middle Village) paid his first, and possibly last, visit to Community Board 11 last week when he talked about his experiences in Washington thus far and his stance on issues concerning the district. Comment.

St. Albans

A group of concerned Queens residents is using the Internet to send a message to the president to get him to support a measure that would help halt any attempt to break up the site of the St. Albans VA hospital. Comments (2).

St. Albans

The brother of an NFL player was shot outside his new business in St. Albans Friday, and as police tried to track down clues the football star was pleading with the public to help bring justice to his sibling. Comment.

Jamaica

The man accused of firebombing a Jamaica mosque and four other places in southeast Queens and Long Island was ordered last week to be held behind bars for the time being and prosecutors say his remanding was necessary to protect society. Comment.

Flushing

Flushing police have started their 2012 crackdown on illegal activity in the area’s drinking establishments, arresting a woman on charges of possessing drugs at a downtown bar whose legal address was questioned in an earlier report. Comments (3).

Far Rockaway

Seemona Sumasar said following the sentencing of Jerry Ramrattan, who raped her and then enacted an elaborate framing scheme that put her in prison for months, she would have to rebuild from the damage the ex-boyfriend had done to her life. Comments (2).

Education

Stalled negotiations between the city Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers over a teacher-evaluation system could contribute to Queens schools losing their share of hundreds of millions of federal education dollars. Comment.

Corona

CORONA — A 35-year-old Corona man was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court Tuesday on more than 3,000 counts of possessing and promoting child pornography, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Comment.

Jamaica

Tyshawn Russell, of Brooklyn College, has put together an impressive basketball career over the last four years with the Bulldogs, massing just over 1,000 points, as well as 203 rebounds, 172 assists and 134 steals. Comment.

Dishing with Dee

Hopefully, the holiday party season is finally beginning to wind down. I don’t mind feeling dead tired, but when you look in the mirror and you look dead tired, that’s where you have to draw the line. Comments (1).

Long Island City

Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley announced at the board’s monthly meeting last Thursday that it will be hosting a rally this Thursday at 10 a.m. against strip club Gypsy Rose getting a liquor license. Comment.

Flushing

Northeast Queens police said they will focus on bars and restaurants operating illegally in 2012, but community leaders said more needs to be done on a state level and cited a Flushing watering hole with a questionable liquor license as an example. Comment.